Month: February 2021

Side Hustle Spark 209: 16 Marketing Strategies for 2021 (ahrefs.com)

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Once again, the pure act of my version of curation pays off with new sites, new terms, and new acronyms…

I learned lots from this post by Michal Pecánek.

From the ‘Yes, I am and probably always will be a newbie’ department: Stuff I didn’t know or hadn’t thought of–newsjacking, featured snippets, more alternatives to Google, Quora marketing, brand codes, and HARO (‘Help a reporter out’) requests.

And now, time for book recommendations…or shameless commercialism…or both. Okay, there are definitely book recommendations…

These seven books are go-to sources of inspiration and valued experience. These are affiliate links which, if you use to preview and buy the product, won’t raise the product’s price and will earn me a commission. At that point, I’ll be that much closer to buying that unclaimed island in the Caribbean. Please don’t ask for the island’s coordinates. It is mine and you can’t have it. ;->

These books cut across so many lines of productivity and accomplishment. Whether you use these links or go elsewhere, get your hands on these.

Side Hustle Spark 208: “Organize your stuff!” Today: Advice for Side Hustlers

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My content organization effort continues…

For now, I hope the topic-centered approach is helpful.

Topic: Advice for Side Hustlers

Side Hustle Spark 207: Create and Go Quick Tour

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STILL with the Create and Go folks.

I finally settled in and visited this winning effort by Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus.

Click here or on the image for a 90-second tour of the site.

That baby is chock-full of valuable content. Much like Copyblogger, the site itself provides multiple courses within the free content.

Favorite items (so far):

  • The ‘Tools’ section
  • The free Blogging Bootcamp email course
  • The 4 Phases of Online Blogging Success

Side Hustle Spark 206: Building a Multi-Million Dollar Blogging Empire (Lauren McManus)

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I first heard Lauren McManus on an episode of Teachable.com’s podcast. She and her partner epitomized what I would call ‘the thoughtful pivot’.

Then while writing Side Hustle Spark 204, I once again ran across Create and Go and Shannon Mattern’s 2020 chat with Lauren—Building a Multi-Million Dollar Blogging Empire with Lauren McManus of Create and Go.

A few highlights:

  • “I think about nine people, including both of our mothers attended this webinar to try to sell a product and that didn’t end up working out.”
  • “we targeted a few different other weight loss, affiliate products at them just to see what kind of products they were interested in. And it was from this whole process that we…learned a lot more about our audience and what they wanted.”
  • “we were getting…all these different responses that allowed us to kind of create this customer avatar. And we used these things to then create our own product again. But this time we knew who we were talking to and how to sell it…so that was the biggest turning point.”
  • “we try to tell our (Create-and-Go) students all the time is that our YouTube channel for the first like two or three years…it was just the most unpolished casual.”
  • “they can just relate to you a lot more. And I think it [the ‘unpolished casual’ vibe] is so, so, so important in everything that you do…it just helps you connect with your readers better…I think we’re a bit more approachable than, than some people.”
  • “Yeah, absolutely. I think that the biggest, the biggest hurdle to overcome is honestly just getting started.”
  • “figure out kind of what you want to do, and then just start it because no matter what this project, this business, whatever you’re starting, it’s going to end up drastically changing in the first, you know, six months to a year.”
  • “And…the longer you put it off, it’s like all those things that you want and all those fears that you have…all you’re doing is making them come true by sitting on this information and waiting around, waiting for perfect opportunity to arise.”

Here also is Shannon’s interview with Lauren’s partner, Alex Nerney.

Side Hustle Spark 205: “Organize your stuff!” Today: Blogging Content

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Gee, you’d think after 200+ posts, I might get around to organizing some of the content.

So I’m working on a page where posts are sorted out by tags and categories.

Here is the beginning of my organizing process. More will be added, of course.

For now, I hope the topic-centered approach is helpful.

Topic: Blogging

Side Hustle Spark 204: Bloggers’ reports and best affiliate marketing blogs

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Some of the affiliate blogs mentioned in the post

Click the image above for a one-minute peek at two sites delivered in my Scoop.it feed.

I’ve also added a link to Ryan Robinson’s latest income report. People seemed to appreciate a previous post to an earlier income report of his.

Just for grins, here is a look at Create and Go’s income report.

Links to the posts highlighted in the video are below:

18 Best Affiliate Marketing Blogs & Affiliate Marketers Every Beginner Should Follow in 2021

100 Blog Income Reports to Inspire Your Blogging Journey (Note: some reports date back to 2017, but can still serve as a tool for inspiration.)

Side Hustle Spark 203: Chris Guillebeau’s Failure Friday (new feature at Side Hustle School)

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Here’s a link to the first episode of Side Hustle School’s Failure Friday.

Quotes from Chris’s show notes:

“…Failure Friday…a collection of short stories all about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure.” 

“The stories will vary, but often it starts with an idea, what they thought would happen and what really happened—and of course, what they learned.”

And, here’s

https://teasetea.com

And now, time for book recommendations…or shameless commercialism…or both. Okay, there are definitely book recommendations…

These seven books are go-to sources of inspiration and valued experience. These are affiliate links which, if you use to preview and buy the product, won’t raise the product’s price and will earn me a commission. At that point, I’ll be that much closer to buying that unclaimed island in the Caribbean. Please don’t ask for the island’s coordinates. It is mine and you can’t have it. ;->

These books cut across so many lines of productivity and accomplishment. Whether you use these links or go elsewhere, get your hands on these.

Side Hustle Spark 202: A second pair of editing eyes before you publish that post

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Take a look at the 90-second demo of the Hemingway App, a convenient online tool to sharpen your customer communications before you post them. [Yeeesh, I’m going to run that sentence through the Hemingway App and see what it says. Results below.]

Benefit: Hemingway’s feedback sends you back to your copy to at least question his judgement. Can’t go wrong!

Plus, when you’re done, you can reward yourself with a trip to Paris or Cuba and retrace some of his haunts…okay, maybe not such a good idea.

There is also a $20 desktop version.

Happy writing.

Side Hustle Spark 201: Sharpen your blog posts with Copyblogger’s checklist

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More quality content from Copyblogger and Stefanie Flaxman.

Here is the link to the one-minute video curation. The image above is also linked.

It’s meant to give you an overview of the checklist items, but I encourage you to hit that ‘pause’ button to read the entire post.

Why no audio? I’m figuring if you’re looking at this on your phone in a public setting, you may not want to mess with volume controls. And the writer’s words do just fine without my commentary.

Why not just click to the post? Absolutely, but some folks might just want the device to guide them through the content.

This post raised plenty of points to explore and clarify. I have to better understand ‘featured images’ and the ‘more’ tag.

Hope this gives you a little help as you create your own content.

This content works for folks in all stages of their side hustles, so, by all means, pass this along.

Side Hustle Spark 200: Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards (2020)

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Photo by Vale Zmeykov on Unsplash

A tip of the cap and a follow-up post to acknowledge Fast Company’s spurring innovation on many levels.

Here is a rundown of the winners of their 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards.

Some of these may have no relevance to you, but some may just land in your wheelhouse and correlate directly to your business.

And don’t discount the power of cross-pollinating ideas. Something that doesn’t speak directly to your audience might still spark an idea for problem-solving, marketing, or a new product.